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When the time came for the US Supreme Court to stand up and be counted, six of the justices answered the call.
Led by Chief Justice John Roberts, they ruled on Friday that President Donald Trump cannot ignore statutory and constitutional limits and simply grab power for himself. The guardrails have held, at least when it comes to Trump’s unprecedented claim that he could impose and lift tariffs basically on a whim.
The ruling directly challenges Trump on his signature issue and calls into question levies that the president claims are bringing in $900bn a year, a burden that economists say is falling heavily on American businesses and consumers.
It is a strong and overdue rebuke to a president who from the day he retook power last January has been ignoring the plain language of the constitution that he swore an oath to uphold.
In this case, Trump claimed that a 1977 law known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act gave him the power to impose sweeping import levies even though the constitution specifically reserves taxing powers for Congress and the law makes no reference to “tariffs” or “duties”.
The ruling brought together the court’s three-member liberal wing with Roberts and two Trump appointees, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch, who have proved willing at times to stand up to their patron.
It also marks the first time in Trump’s second presidency that the administration has lost a fully briefed challenge to its authority.
Last year, the court issued 26 rulings on challenges to Trump administration actions, all but one of them on the emergency docket where the court handles requests to stay lower court decisions while cases work their way through the appeals process. It found for the administration 21 times, including in the only case that was fully briefed.
But it turns out that even this court will only accept so many assaults on legal and constitutional norms. In December, the same six justices ruled on the emergency docket that Trump lacked the authority to take control of the Illinois National Guard and send it into Chicago over the objection of local officials.
And at a hearing last month, a number of justices expressed scepticism about Trump’s attempt to dismiss US Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, although the court has not yet issued a ruling in that case.
In Friday’s tariff case, the dramatic decision came in an opinion that was simultaneously complicated and limited. The majority agreed on the results despite a bitter internal debate about what standard of review to use, leading to a multi-part opinion and a series of concurrences, as well as two dissents.
The court also declined to weigh in on the crucial question of what happens next and whether and when businesses and consumers who have paid tariffs under the illegal regime are entitled to refunds. But the crucial fact for non-lawyers is that the justices lived up to their role in article III of the constitution as a check on the other two branches of government.
“We claim no special competence in matters of economics or foreign affairs. We claim only, as we must, the limited role assigned to us by Article III . . . Fulfilling that role, we hold that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs,” Roberts wrote.
The justices did their job, and for that the US owes them thanks.